Darwin drug kingpin’s 2IC was plotting takeover bid, court hears

The chief lieutenant in a $20m Darwin cannabis importation racket was plotting to usurp syndicate ‘top dog’, Peter Wellman James, when the criminal enterprise came crashing down, a court has heard.

THE chief lieutenant in a $20m Darwin cannabis importation racket was plotting to usurp syndicate “top dog”, Peter Wellman James, when the criminal enterprise came crashing down, a court has heard.

James has pleaded guilty to commercial drug supply, conspiracy and dealing with property in the commission of an offence, and faced a sentencing hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The court has previously heard James was the boss of the syndicate’s Darwin operations, which involved sourcing large quantities of cannabis from a shadowy cabal of Adelaide suppliers, known as “the Russians”.

His barrister, David Edwardson QC, told the court that after a significant shipment of the drug was intercepted by police en route to Darwin, James’ 2IC, Shannon Wagner, had lost faith in James’ “ability to head up the Darwin operations”.

“By November 2020, a plan was under way between the Russians and Mr Wagner for Mr James to be ousted,” he said.

“In a covertly recorded conversation with his wife on the 21st of July 2020, Wagner expressed the view that (James) was proving to lack the organisational and other skills that Wagner had,” he said.

“(He) noted that ‘they’re ripping him off again’ and ‘nobody wants to give him money’.”

Mr Edwardson said, the following day, Wagner was also recorded telling his wife that “the Russians were not happy with how things were going”.

“Wagner told her that their view was that ‘f***ing Peter is f***ing up’ and the ‘money’s f***ed up’ and the count wasn’t ‘right’,” he said.

“As things developed in the course of the history of this significant criminal syndicate, there was very much in play a changing of the guard.”

Mr Edwardson said James was only an underling of the elusive Russians, who are yet to be apprehended, saying “it was the Russians’ cannabis” and as such, most of the profits were remitted to them, via a key contact, codenamed MilkMan.

He said his client was “inserted by the Russians as the head of the Darwin syndicate”, but by the end there was “little to distinguish between (him) and Wagner”.

“At one level, Wagner, going forward, was a much more significant figure in the context of the syndicate and its proposed continued cannabis distribution before both Wagner and (James) were arrested,” he said.

“Indeed it was Mr Wagner who, during the End of Days before arrest, was directly involved specifically with the MilkMan and was clearly positioning himself as being the person who would take over, or run the show, and was effectively marginalising my client.”

Crown prosecutor, David Dalrymple, said he accepted the Russians had “seen a business opportunity” to enter the more lucrative Darwin cannabis market, but that did not mean James was “acting at the direction of the Russians”.

“All the Russians need to know, once the product reaches Darwin, is that they’re going to get their money,” he said.

“What happens then in terms of the distribution to preferred dealers in Darwin is not a matter for the Russians, it’s a matter for Mr James.

“It’s a mutual benefit scheme that has different roles to play for different people.”

Wagner was jailed for 12 years in November for his role in the syndicate and James will return to court at a later date.